A bloke walks into a pub, and the landlord is astonished to see that half of his head is an orange!

The man orders a drink, and the landlord, unable to contain his curiosity any longer, says to the man 'Excuse me mate, but how on earth did you end up with one half of your head being an orange?'

'Well, it's a funny story,' says the man. 'A few years ago, I was working in the Middle East and one day I came across a rusty old lamp. I thought it might be worth a few bob, and I rubbed it on my sleeve to see if there was any kind of a hallmark. Well the next thing I knew, there was a puff of smoke and there in front of me was a burly, eastern looking bloke on a magic carpet, and he said to me,' 'Master, you have released me from my prison and in return I'll grant you 3 wishes.'

'Well' says the bloke to the barman 'He didn't need to tell me twice!.
Straight away, quick as a flash I said 'Right, well my first wish is that I'm married to one of the most beautiful woman in the world', and immediately, beside me appeared Kylie Minogue, in hotpants and everything, with a wedding ring on her finger'.

'Jesus' says the barman. 'So what happened next?'

Well, I was delighted obviously' says the bloke 'But realised I didn't have the funds necessary to keep a woman like Kylie in the manner to which she's accustomed. So straightaway I said to the genie 'Now I want a million pounds in my bank account, and I don't want it to ever run out, no matter how much I spend'. Next thing I knew, I was holding a bank statement showing that my account had one million pounds in it!'

'That's incredible' says the barman 'And so what was your third wish'

'My third wish' says the man, 'was for half of my head to be an orange'

My interpretation is that it's a deconstruction of the standard "three wishes" joke.

We're led to expect that the man's final wish will have dire consequences based on some kind of silly or ironic misunderstanding (as in "make me a ham sandwich" or "...and that half-deaf genie thought I said I wanted a twelve-inch pianist"). Because we know that's how three-wishes jokes work. To learn that half of his head ended up being an orange because that's exactly what he wished for -- that counfounds our expectations in a funny, though nonsensical, way.

Al Dante wrote:My interpretation is that it's a deconstruction of the standard "three wishes" joke.

We're led to expect that the man's final wish will have dire consequences based on some kind of silly or ironic misunderstanding (as in "make me a ham sandwich" or "...and that half-deaf genie thought I said I wanted a twelve-inch pianist"). Because we know that's how three-wishes jokes work. To learn that half of his head ended up being an orange because that's exactly what he wished for -- that counfounds our expectations in a funny, though nonsensical, way.